A comparative study on drying of basil leaves

Basil is a popular aromatic and annual herb growing in many regions of the world.  Immediately after its harvesting, the highly perishable raw material, i.e. leaves, have to be preserved against deterioration and spoilage.  More often, during peak period, most of the crop is lost/wasted due to lack of proper post-harvest processing techniques.  Drying is by far the most widely used treatment, which needs to be performed very carefully and preciously so as to preserve the aroma and color of the leaves.  Various drying treatments and experimental methods viz., solar drying, tray drying, vacuum drying and fluidized bed drying were carried out at the temperatures of45°C,55°Cand65°Cto find and suggest the optimum drying condition for acquiring quality dried basil leaves.  Results have revealed that ‘total drying time’ is considerably reduced with the increase in drying air temperatures from45°Cto65°C.  It could be recommended that for the best drying of basil leaves, the drying operation needs to be carried out in the fluidized bed dryer at 45ºC for 30 s steam blanched sample ensuring the best results in quality of basil leaves as compared to other methods and treatments whatever considered during present study

Imine-palladacycles as phosphine-free precatalysts for low temperature Suzuki-Miyaura synthesis of nucleoside analogues in aqueous media

The synthesis and characterization of new water-soluble dinuclear palladacycles of the general formula [{Pd(R-C^N-SO3Na)(μ-AcO)}2] (R = H (1), OMe (2), Cl (3)) incorporating an ortho-metalated sodium 4-(N-benzylideneamino)benzenesulfonate moiety is reported. These complexes have been revealed to be excellent phosphine-free catalysts for the synthesis of functionalized nucleoside analogues involving a low-temperature Suzuki–Miyaura coupling of 5-iodo-2′-deoxyuridine with different arylboronic acids in neat water. The potential of 1–3 as synthetic precursors was also tested, and bridging acetates were cleaved by reaction with neutral PPh3, yielding the corresponding mononuclear derivatives [Pd(R-C^N-SO3Na)(AcO)(PPh3)] (R = H (4), MeO (5), Cl (6)). Analytical and spectroscopic techniques confirmed the proposed formulas and reactivities reported for complexes 1–6. Structural characterization by X-ray diffraction of single crystals grown from samples of 4 and 6 produced the unexpected but valuable crystallization-mediated compounds 4cm and 6cm that also supported the results presented here.This work has been partially supported by RTI2018-098233-B-C21 (MICINN) and 20790/PI/18 (Fundación SENECA CARM) grants. A.R.K would like to acknowledge SERB for EMR grant (EMR/2016/005439). Professor Gregorio Sánchez, who recently passed away, is gratefully acknowledged for his contribution to this work and his wise and continuous advise and suppor

Influence of Vermicomposted Coal Fly Ash on Morphological and Cytological Attributes of Ricinus communis L.

In view of the environmental problems generated by the large-scale production of fly ash, increasing attention is now being paid to the recycling of fly ash as a good source of nutrients. To reduce the cost of fly ash disposal and best utilization, it aimed to convert the fly ash into valuable vermicompost. Stated throughout the experiment, we opted for a soil sample and fly ash and pressed with different concentrations (control, 20%, 50%, 80% and 100%). Subsequently, all the mixtures were vermicomposted for 60 days by adding 100 Earthworms (Eisenia foetida) in each pile. The X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy measured the composition of the metal in fly ash as well as the nutritional content in the soil. This is followed by examining the morphological characteristics and cytogenetic study of Ricinus communis L. The present study indicated that E. foetida mitigates the toxicity of fly ash and is hence used as valuable vermicompost

Insights into the geometries, electronic and magnetic properties of neutral and charged palladium clusters

We performed an unbiased structure search for low-lying energetic minima of neutral and charged palladium Pd(n)(Q) (n = 2–20, Q = 0, + 1 and –1) clusters using CALYPSO method in combination with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The main candidates for the lowest energy neutral, cationic and anionic clusters are identified, and several new candidate structures for the cationic and anionic ground states are obtained. It is found that the ground state structures of small palladium clusters are more sensitive to the charge states. For the medium size Pd(n)(0/+/–) (n = 16–20) clusters, a fcc-like growth behavior is found. The structural transition from bilayer-like structures to cage-like structures is likely to occur at n = 14 for the neutral and cationic clusters. In contrast, for the anionic counterparts, the structural transition occurs at Pd(13)(–). The photoelectron spectra (PES) of palladium clusters are simulated based on the time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) method and compared with the experimental data. The good agreement between the experimental PES and simulated spectra provides us unequivocal structural information to fully solve the global minimum structures, allowing for new molecular insights into the chemical interactions in the Pd cages

Synthesis, characterization and antibacterial activity studies of new 2‑pyrral‑L‑amino acid Schif base palladium (II) complexes.

Three new 2-pyrral amino acid Schif base palladium (II) complexes were synthesized, characterized and their activity against six bacterial species was investigated. The ligands: Potassium 2-pyrrolidine-L-methioninate (L1), Potassium 2-pyrrolidine-L-histidinate (L2) and Potassium 2-pyrrolidine-L-tryptophanate (L3) were synthesized and reacted with dichloro(1,5- cyclooctadiene)palladium(II) to form new palladium (II) complexes C1, C2 and C3, respectively. 1 NMR, FTIR, UV–Vis,elemental analysis and conductivity measurements were used to characterize the products. The antibacterial activities of the compounds were evaluated against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus, ATCC 25923), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, ATCC 33591), Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis, ATCC 12228) and Streptococcus pyogenes (S. pyogenes, ATCC 19615) and, gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa, ATCC 27853) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae, ATCC 13883) using the agar well difusion assay and microtitre plate serial dilution method. The palladium complexes were active against the selected bacteria with the imidazole ring containing complex C2 and indole heterocyclic ring containing complex C3 showing the highest activity

Rapid plugged flow synthesis of nucleoside analogues via Suzuki-Miyaura coupling and heck Alkenylation of 5-Iodo-2’-deoxyuridine (or cytidine)

Nucleosides modification via conventional cross-coupling has been performed using different catalytic systems and found to take place via long reaction times. However, since the pandemic, nucleoside-based antivirals and vaccines have received widespread attention and the requirement for rapid modification and synthesis of these moieties has become a major objective for researchers. To address this challenge, we describe the development of a rapid flow-based cross-coupling synthesis protocol for a variety of C5-pyrimidine substituted nucleosides. The protocol allows for facile access to multiple nucleoside analogues in very good yields in a few minutes compared to conventional batch chemistry. To highlight the utility of our approach, the synthesis of an anti-HSV drug, BVDU was also achieved in an efficient manner using our new protocol. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Interpretable machine learning model to predict survival days of malignant brain tumor patients

An artificial intelligence (AI) model’s performance is strongly influenced by the input features. Therefore, it is vital to find the optimal feature set. It is more crucial for the survival prediction of the glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) type of brain tumor. In this study, we identify the best feature set for predicting the survival days (SD) of GBM patients that outrank the current state-of-the-art methodologies. The proposed approach is an end-to-end AI model. This model first segments tumors from healthy brain parts in patients’ MRI images, extracts features from the segmented results, performs feature selection, and makes predictions about patients’ survival days (SD) based on selected features. The extracted features are primarily shape-based, location-based, and radiomics-based features. Additionally, patient metadata is also included as a feature. The selection methods include recursive feature elimination, permutation importance (PI), and finding the correlation between the features. Finally, we examined features’ behavior at local (single sample) and global (all the samples) levels. In this study, we find that out of 1265 extracted features, only 29 dominant features play a crucial role in predicting patients’ SD. Among these 29 features, one is metadata (age of patient), three are location-based, and the rest are radiomics features. Furthermore, we find explanations of these features using post-hoc interpretability methods to validate the model’s robust prediction and understand its decision. Finally, we analyzed the behavioral impact of the top six features on survival prediction, and the findings drawn from the explanations were coherent with the medical domain. We find that after the age of 50 years, the likelihood of survival of a patient deteriorates, and survival after 80 years is scarce. Again, for location-based features, the SD is less if the tumor location is in the central or back part of the brain. All these trends derived from the developed AI model are in sync with medically proven facts. The results show an overall 33% improvement in the accuracy of SD prediction compared to the top-performing methods of the BraTS-2020 challenge

Asian Journal on Energy and Environment Upgrading biogas for utilization as a vehicle fuel

Abstract: The demand for petroleum products in India has been increasing at a faster rate than the increase in domestic availability, resulting in increased imports. The transport sector is the single largest consumer of petroleum products. Secondly, about 65 % of total air pollution is caused by the emissions of pollutants from the vehicles run on petroleum products. In the wake of this, there is urgent need to introduce alternate fuels as substitutes for diesel and petrol in the transport sector. Biogas, a clean and renewable fuel, has vast potential in India. It can be supplement to petroleum products, if used in compressed form in cylinders. Here a model is conceptualized for bottling of biogas from 120 m 3 /day capacity biogas plant and its use as vehicle fuel. It can save petrol worth about 0.66 million Rs. per annum and also generate employment for 12 persons

Oxidative addition of N-halosuccinimides to palladium(0): The discovery of neutral palladium(II) imidate ligands, which enhance Stille coupling of allylic and benzylic halides

The Stille coupling of organostannanes and organohalides, mediated by air and moisture stable palladium(II) phosphine complexes containing succinimide or phthalimide (imidate) ligands, has been investigated. An efficient synthetic route to several palladium(II) complexes containing succinimide and phthalimide ligands, has been developed. cis-Bromobis(triphenylphosphine)(N-succinimide)palladium(II) [(Ph3P)2Pd(N-Succ)Br] is shown to mediate the Stille coupling of allylic and benzylic halides with alkenyl, aryl and allyl stannanes. In competition experiments between 4-nitrobromobenzene and benzyl bromide with a cis-stannylvinyl ester, (Ph3P)2Pd(N-Succ)Br preferentially cross-couples benzyl bromide, whereas with other commonly employed precatalysts 4-nitrobromobenzene undergoes preferential cross-coupling. Furthermore, preferential reaction of deactivated benzyl bromides over activated benzyl bromides is observed for the first time. The type of halide and presence of a succinimide ligand are essential for effective Stille coupling. The type of phosphine ligand is also shown to alter the catalytic activity of palladium(II) succinimide complexes